


all that yearns west of words

by tinuviel_tinuviel



Category: Alice by Heart - Sheik/Sater/Sater & Nelson
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, One-sided pining, Reincarnation AU, alfred is lactose intolerant, also woohoo look at me writing alfred's pov for once, because let's be real i can't be mean to them for too long!!, not ultimately that sad, unecessarily angsty but also like, unexpected reunion, which is plot-relevant in a minor way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24413023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinuviel_tinuviel/pseuds/tinuviel_tinuviel
Summary: Alfred had lived before; he suspected everyone had, even though they’d forgotten. He remembered everything. Growing up in a weed-tangled house. The start of the war. The start of the disease. Shaking as bombs rattled the windows, shaking with violent coughs. Dying in his best friend’s arms. Growing up, again, in a dusty apartment. Medicine was better now, and food more plentiful, and he tried to be grateful for what he had, and not ache for what he missed. A second chance at life was enough.Until one day on the bus when it suddenly wasn't.
Relationships: (sort of) - Relationship, Alice Spencer/Alfred Hallam
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	all that yearns west of words

Alfred had lived before; he suspected everyone had, even though they’d forgotten. He remembered everything. Growing up in a weed-tangled house. The start of the war. The start of the disease. Shaking as bombs rattled the windows, shaking with violent coughs. Dying in his best friend’s arms. Growing up, again, in a dusty apartment. Medicine was better now, and food more plentiful, and he tried to be grateful for what he had, and not ache for what he missed. A second chance at life was enough.

Until one day on the bus when it suddenly wasn't. It was September, and a hot breeze blew through the aisle as the bus doors opened to let on passengers. He never figured out what made him look up. 

Alice Spencer stood in the narrow aisle, frowning as the breeze played with her dark hair. His heart almost stopped. This wasn't possible. She caught his gaze and electricity seemed to surge through the air. She was _here._ He dug his fingers into his thighs, paralyzed by indecision. Did she remember? Did she recognize him?

"There you are!" she said breathlessly, beaming. 

"Alice," he choked out, as she ran to him. It had been years — decades — and he had been dying, and she had been—

She crushed her lips against his and then nothing else mattered. How many times, in another life, had he dragged himself away from the feeling of her hot breath against his feverish skin, sick and sick again with fear and longing? Now, it was effortless, heat filling him like the incoming tide as she pulled him against her.

She released him, glancing furtively over her shoulder before sinking into the seat beside him, breathing hard. "Thank you so much for playing along," she said fervently. 

The heat left his skin like ash burning out. "What—?" He couldn't form the rest of any coherent sentence. 

"My ex won't leave me alone," she said, pulling her backpack into her lap as the bus rattled into motion. "He's the one that dumped me but he won't believe that it's really over. I tried switching buses, but then it looked like he was going to follow me on and I didn't know what to do and you looked friendly. Sorry if that was super weird. I can go now if you want, he didn't board."

"No! No, you're fine," he said, semi-automatically. An aching hollow had opened in his chest. Stupid, stupid, _stupid._ No one else remembered their lives before— why did he think would Alice be different? And still he was tuned to the frequency of her movements, noticing immediately the subtle tenseness of her grip on her backpack. "Are you okay?"

"Better now," she said. "Working on a plan for tomorrow. I might take a later bus. Hopefully he doesn't have any of his customers watching for me. Pro tip, don't date your dealer."

“You were dating your drug dealer?"

"Not real drugs, you nerd, just weed,” she said, misinterpreting his tone. “And he never even gave me a discount. And I don’t even like the smell! I just smoked with him because he had no other hobbies and I thought he was hot, and now my clothes stink and he broke up with me anyway. Men are trash.” She slid further down in her seat. “Except you, you seem okay,” she amended.

It was kind of pathetic how much that meant to him. “Do you have a place to stay and everything?” he asked.

“Yeah, I live in a dorm on the university campus, so breaking up isn’t _that_ big of a deal.”

“It’s still a big deal,” he comforted, and then processed her words. “Wait, you’re a university student too?”

“You go to Carroll too?” she said, breaking into a brilliant smile when he nodded. “That’s so cool! I’m a lit major, what about you?”

“Pre-med,” he said. If she kept smiling like that his brain would shut down. He’d loved her so frantically, once. After years at the same university without running into each other, _this_ was how they met. The universe had a malicious sense of humor. He needed to extricate himself from this situation as soon as possible, or else commit himself entirely.

“Let me take you to the burger place off-campus,” she said. “As an apology for all of this. They’ve got incredible dairy-free milkshakes.”

“How did you know I’m lactose-intolerant?”

She opened her mouth and then closed it again, frowning. “Oh. I don’t know, I just— huh. Weird! Lucky guess, I guess.”

And with that a spark of hope kindled in his chest and his fate was sealed. If there was even the slightest chance that she remembered, he couldn’t back out. And like the stupid, hopeless, lovesick fool he’d always been, he took the chance. “I’d love to,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m Alfred, by the way.”

“Alfred,” she repeated, some indecipherable emotion flickering through her eyes as she shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Alice Spencer.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally a scene in another au that went WAY off the rails and I have no self-control so I was like! let's go! I don't plan to add onto this one-shot but you can rest easy knowing that they do have burgers together, alice buys alfred a delicious dairy-free milkshake (really more of a smoothie) and everything works out in the end :)
> 
> please drop kudos and a comment, or come talk to me on tumblr at @davey-in-a-minivan!


End file.
